How to Integrate International SEO into The Translation Process

February 25, 2013

With the predominance of budgets spent on online global
marketing, website content localization is becoming more important
to marketers. Expanding your online presence into international
markets must involve a solid content strategy and well-planned
execution in order to meet your business goals in these new
markets.

The process of providing localized content for your target
markets should always include comprehensive website localization
along with an effective SEO strategy. In this blog post we will
discuss how to integrate international SEO into the website
translation and localization process.

Planning in advance

The benefits of
considering search engine optimization before building a
multilingual website is a cost effective approach for international
marketers. Over the years, some businesses didn't consider
international search engine optimization as part of their online
strategy from the beginning and later on they came to face the fact
that search engine optimization is highly required for their
multinational websites.

The technical challenges (and the cost) will increase
significantly if you implement search engine optimization
after launching the website. These expensive changes
could include the change of the website internal structure,
implementing another round of copywriting and layout modifications.
For instance, you might need to change the navigation menus text
and replace it with search engine optimized text and this could
affect the overall menu design (width and height). This might
require as well extra hours for optimizing the CSS styles and HTML
code.

International SEO and Translation Process

Ideally, international SEO is a strategic step which should be
integrated into the localization process in order to build in a
comprehensive and effective international SEO capability from the
beginning.

The website localization process includes the following series
of fundamental steps that need to be completed in order to launch a
successful multilingual website for the global market:

Review & Analysis of source website assets

Best practice multilingual workflow based on a Content
Management System (CMS)

Project Kick-Off

Subject Matter Training and Research

Content Cultural Correctness Assessment

Glossary and Style Guide Development

SEO - Keywords Research & Localization

Transcreation & Copywriting

Localization of any Graphics

Localization of any Documents

Localization of any Multimedia

Basic Online QA & Testing

Search Engine Marketing

Launch Language Versions

International SEO tasks for Website Localization

To
conduct an effective international SEO initiative into your website translation and
localization process you will need to integrate the following the
steps:

1. Initial keywords research. Keywords are the core
for search engine optimization process and without a solid list of
keywords you will be blindly stepping into SEO without proper
targeting. Each business or service should always have basic
keywords and terms that define the offering for online users and it
is very important to define those keywords from the very beginning.
It is essential market research for an online business to define
carefully their keywords and to build the content strategy and
search engine marketing efforts around those key terms. The initial
keywords list should include all the keywords and phrases that
describe the nature of your business and the target segmentations.
For the development of an effective keywords list you should
consider the following:

Research your keywords using the Google keyword tool or
other keyword tools to check the keyword popularity and to generate
keyword ideas.

By researching and building your initial keywords your
localization services agency can easily define the most relevant
keywords to localize and use for the other language versions of
your website.

2. Multilingual keyword phrase research, refinement and
localization. To achieve the best results, find a
localization partner with a professional team that understands not
only the cultural nuances of the target language, but is also an
expert with international SEO and SEM best practices with the
target languages and countries.

Localizing your keyword list into target languages includes
several steps:

Professional human translation of the keyword list into the
target language.

Adapting the keyword list to the locale (combination of
language, culture and geography).

Researching the localized keyword phrase among the local search
engines in order to determine the accuracy of the localized
keywords.

Generating an expanded list of new keyword ideas by using the
keyword tools.

Finalizing the localized keyword list with the most relevant
and competitive keywords for the localized version of the
website.

3. Multilingual SEO copywriting. SEO copywriting is
different than traditional copywriting. SEO
copywriting requires implementation of keywords into the web
content. SEO Copywriters should be able to deliver the content
message along with optimizing web page copy by targeting keyword
phrases in certain frequencies and densities.

4. On-page optimization. On-page optimization is a
process to optimize your localized web pages in order to achieve
good indexing and to help your individual web pages rankings.

Addressing SEO on-page for localized website may
include:

SEO customization for keyword-rich Titles, Meta-Tags, URLs and
HTML.

"Description" meta tag optimization for search engine

HTML, JavaScript, CSS code validation.

Heading inclusion/optimization using localized customized
keywords.

SEO modification for keyword-rich links.

Keyword formatting "Bold, Italic, linkage" customization.

Keyword density final analysis for each page.

5. On-site optimization. On-site optimization is a
process to optimize your entire website in order to achieve good
indexing and includes, among other items, link building internally
and externally, avoiding duplication issues between languages in
localized websites, as well as providing enhancements for internal
and global linkage in all the different languages you
translate.

Addressing multilingual SEO on-site may
include:

SEO content integration and content development to increase the
online content.

Building internal linking between all the languages,
multilingual link building.

Create search engine friendly XML sitemap for website
links.

6. New content suggestions. Content creation and
development should always benefit your localized website by
increasing the content for local markets. Many marketers still
don't pay good attention to multilingual content strategies when
they start international online marketing. It is very important to
create new content that is specific for the target markets after
you localize your website. For more information, please check our
blog post How to
Create a Content Strategy for Multilingual Content .

Including search engine optimization into the web localization
process will always benefit your online strategy and will have an
effect on several factors including the cost, time and
workflow.

Further resources on International SEO and
SEM

GPI's International SEO Specialists will conduct your
multilingual keyword analysis, ranging from terminology accuracy
equivalents to keyword density factor evaluation and competition
analysis. GPI also offers
International SEO and many other translation
services.

For more information on issues specific to search engine
marketing, you may wish to review our previous blogs:

Comments

Natalie Veis Williams - Global Digital Marketing ManagerNatalie was born and raised in the state of Montana, USA where she graduated from The University of Montana with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration. Her international experience includes two summer programs, one at The European Business School in Germany and the other at The University of Brescia in Italy. She studied a variety of global business subjects including international business, trade, culture and language. Key projects for her undergrad studies included meeting with executives from large corporations such as Lufthansa, Opel, and The European Central Bank as well as working with the design team on the marketing plan for the 2015 World Fair in Milan, Italy. She has a range of global event management experience including organization of the Annual Mansfield Conference on the Middle East and the China Town Hall meeting series. Her hobbies include yoga, cooking, reading, being outdoors and traveling.